Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 764 contributions
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Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Ash Regan
Thank you. I will move on to the Scottish Government’s policy on highly protected marine areas, which is a topic on which the cabinet secretary and I have exchanged letters. The Government says that its policy will be evidence driven and evidence led. However, if we think of the Lamlash bay area as a trial, it would seem to me and to others that that is quite a small area and clearly there is not sufficient data coming out of there—very little at all. Would it not be prudent to cover a larger trial area, or even a number of trial areas, ahead of the policy being implemented, in order to collect more data on which the Government could then base its policy decisions?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Ash Regan
I have one final short question, if the convener will allow me.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Ash Regan
There has been much criticism of the plans that the Government has set out. I note that the Government said that it met 20 stakeholder group representatives from marine industries and other users. However, that was prior to the consultation, which includes the organisations that are now most critical of the proposals. Will the Government provide an update on the schedule for meeting people now that the proposals are a little bit clearer? How does it intend to work with stakeholders and local communities? I note that it feels as though we have now got ourselves into quite a confrontational situation with them. How does the Government intend to move forward from that and work with communities in a way that the communities themselves would consider to be meaningful?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Ash Regan
Good morning. Given that the annual emissions reduction target for 2021 was missed, and that Scotland has now missed eight out of 12 annual targets for emissions reduction, how confident are you that the 2030 interim target can still be achieved?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Ash Regan
It did—thank you.
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Ash Regan
Has the Scottish Government taken into account the criticism of the selection criteria?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Ash Regan
A while ago, the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee produced a report on the implementation of regional marine planning. The Scottish Government undertook to provide a response to the report, but we have still not received it. Will you give us an update on the timescale for that response?
Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee
Scottish Government Priorities
Meeting date: 27 June 2023
Ash Regan
In its progress report for Scotland at the end of last year, the UK Climate Change Committee said that it did not see evidence of sufficient action to meet the stated ambitions. How, therefore, can the Scottish Government’s monitoring report find that more than twice as many policy indicators are on track than off track? Are those indicators fit for purpose?
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Ash Regan
I think that everyone would agree that there are very clear benefits to complainers in not being retraumatised by the continual retelling of their story over and over again. For those who might be interested in the issue, that is illustrated very well by the television true crime series “Unbelievable”, which shows the compassionate and not-so-compassionate treatment of victims of such crimes.
That type of video-recorded evidence is now standard in many other jurisdictions, and I am pleased that the minister said that there will be an interim report on progress. I am keen to know what the timetable for the interim report is and what progress there is on the potential roll-out of the policy across the rest of the country, as it is a key part of improving evidence gathering and lessening the impact on victims.
Meeting of the Parliament
General Question Time
Meeting date: 22 June 2023
Ash Regan
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the visual recorded interviews pilot, which involves Police Scotland recording the witness statements of adult and 16 and 17-year-old complainers involving allegations of rape and attempted rape, including any learning from the cases involved as they progressed through the courts. (S6O-02418)
